Monday, August 21, 2006

I've been tracking the Denver union issue here, here and here, but, to be honest, it's really hard to judge whether this will be a significant problem for Denver's bid to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. In recent history, the Democrats have never held their convention in a non-union city before - it's a main reason the Democrats have never held their convention in New Orleans. However, Dean's 50-state strategy clearly calls for Democrats to go into and contest areas that aren't traditionally Democratic, and if Dean wants the convention in the Mountain West in order to make an impact in that area, by definition he's going to have to hold the convention in a city whose hotels are, in general, not unionized.

If there are any readers out there who feel that they have a good insight into this issue, please comment on whether you think the lack of union hotels is or is not a significant problem for Denver's bid.

16
comments:

Anonymous
said...

Denver, Colorado for that matter historically has never been a strong "union" state. Currently there are no union hotels (maybe one)in Colorado.

The local union is very close to have a have vote to organize at the Hyatt Regency Convention Center Hotel, the hotel has a neutrality agreement which was agreed upon by the HERE union and the Hyatt which everyone wishes to honor.

If the Hyatt becomes a union shop great! no one is saying differently and it would greatly enhance the Denver bid.

Please put things in perspective however, Minneapolis has 12, New York has over 125 union hotels. If you base this bid just on union hotels, New York, LA on the east and west coasts will win everytime.

If the DNC wants to win in 2008, the West, Mid-West and Southwest is the key to the Presidency, period.

Denver has an excellent bid, wonderful infrastructure and the poeple are great! they are working very diligently to obtain the local union suppport and have alrady received major union endorsements from local/state for the bid. Denver understands that the Democratic Party has a great percentage of their members that are union representatives and this is respected and valued. Denver will continue to work with all unions to obtain their support for a labor agreement and forming a labor council for the Denver 2008 Bid.

Atlanta had a similar issue in 1988, but the Dems went there anyway. I'm not sure if that qualifies as "recent history" for the purposes of your post, but there is a precedent.

Furthermore, focusing on the hotels as the only show of support for labor is myopic at best. Denver has a strong labor community in the construction trades, and they will be used heavily by the Denver folks if they win the bid. Indeed, the best thing for labor would be to go to Colorado, as it creates a unique atmosphere where one of the biggest events in Colorado history pays more attention to organized labor in Colorado than ever before. It would be a catalyst to union revival in Colorado.

Atlanta certainly would qualify as "recent history", but I wasn't aware of any union issues they had. A quick search of the NY Times and the Atlanta JC don't show any articles which discuss union issues being a factor in Atlanta's bid. I did find a couple of articles which discuss how the Democrats had trouble picking a Headquarters Hotel, and eventually chose two hotels, the union Hyatt and the non-union Marriott. If you can provide more background, that would be great.

anyone who doubts labor's influence within the party need only look back towards the changes made to the promary caucus...one of the major factors of moving NV up before NH was labor's strong resence in the state...

... and the desire to balance the Western caucus pick with the eventual convention site of Denver. If you don't know that, you weren't anywhere close to the Rules and Bylaws Committee's private negotiations on that issue...

Well, I think most of us were, of course, not anywhere close to the Rules and Bylaws Committee's private negotiations. Yes you could look at it and say union caucuses in Nevada balance out non-union hotels in Denver. I could also say caucuses in Western state Nevada allow the DNC to bypass Western state Colorado for the convention. I'll make sure I sit in the private negotiations of the RBC the next time they meet to clear up any confusion!

While I think that this debate over the union issue is a legitimate one, I don't think that it will define the DNC's choice. In fact, I think that they will choose Minnesota over NYC and Denver because it's the best place (politically speaking) for the convention to be held.